letters to 7 churches correspond to 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls in # order

[martincisneros]

I'd noticed about a year ago while reading my Scarlett's New Testament that the 7 seals seemed to overlap with the 7 trumpets which would overlap with the 7 bowls, but just this evening noticed an overlapping with the 7 letters, so that:

letter to 1st church goes with 1st seal, 1st trumpet, and 1st bowl;
letter to 2nd church goes with 2nd seal, 2nd trumpet, and 2nd bowl;
letter to 3rd church goes with 3rd seal, 3rd trumpet, and 3rd bowl;
letter to 4th church goes with 4th seal, 4th trumpet, and 4th bowl;
letter to 5th church goes with 5th seal, 5th trumpet, and 5th bowl;
letter to 6th church goes with 6th seal, 6th trumpet, and 6th bowl;
letter to 7th church goes with 7th seal, 7th trumpet, and 7th bowl.

At first, second, and third glance, they don't seem to perfectly parallel, but there will be enough of a coincidental similarity of details to where it's worth setting up 4 columns with 14 lines a piece in ms word or on a private webpage for any of you with your own websites so that you can list the category of each above each of the Scriptures from left to right, so that in private you can consider letter 1 with seal 1, trumpet 1, and bowl 1, etc.  One of the letters to one of the churches will say that those who are worthy will dwell with Him dressed in white, and the corresponding judgment further in the book of revelation will mention the souls of those under the altar that are given white robes.  Under one trumpet a third of the creatures in the sea (perhaps the Mediteranean) dies, while in the same corresponding bowl you'll have every single living thing in the sea die, so that perhaps what's an initial catastrophe of a third of the creatures in the sea dying isn't checked, but then leads to the death of every living thing in that sea.  7th trumpet that ends with the sickle judgments in Revelation 14 could be read with the bowl judgment leading all of the way to the lake of fire judgment in Revelation 20.

7th letter advises buying gold from the Lord that doesn't perish, or something to that effect, while the 7th seal says that all of our prayers are on a golden altar.  False Jews in 6th letter and the sealing of the 144,000 genuine Jews in the 6th seal.  Famine with seal 3, waters are made bitter in trumpet 3, and the people are forced to drink blood with the 3rd bowl.

Each of these is worth looking at in it's apparent grouping together, whether you're leaning towards preterism, futurism, a historicist interpretation, or somewhere between all three of those interpretations.  For ease in putting together your own table in word or in some other way so you can research these in side by side categories, here's how I'm currently studying them:

1st:  Revelation 2:1-7 with Revelation 6:1-2 with Revelation 8:6-7 with Revelation 15:1-16:2

2nd:  Revelation 2:8-11 with Revelation 6:3-4 with Revelation 8:8-9 with Revelation 16:3

3rd:  Revelation 2:12-17 with Revelation 6:5-6 with Revelation 8:10-11 with Revelation 16:4-7

4th:  Revelation 2:18-29 with Revelation 6:7-8 with Revelation 8:12-13 with Revelation 16:8-9

5th:  Revelation 3:1-6 with Revelation 6:9-11 with Revelation 9:1-12 with Revelation 16:10-11

6th:  Revelation 3:7-13 with Revelation 6:12-7:17 with Revelation 9:14-11:14 with Revelation 16:12-16

7th:  Revelation 3:14-22 with Revelation 8:1-5 with Revelation 11:15-14:20 with Revelation 16:17-20:15

On some of these cross references you might see only very slight similarities and compliments, but there's enough here to where it's worth further investigation.  I hope I didn't mess up on any of the references, but I think I've given enough of the general idea.  I'm not yet proposing an interpretation, but just perhaps an interesting way of studying it.

Is the third of what dies in the sea and then later everything that dies in the sea talking about Rome or about a catastrophe with the Mediteranean with the actual sea life?  Preterists, historicists, and futurists may each feel as though they have an interpretation on that, but grouping each of these judgments together like that might enrich each of your interpretations.  Or perhaps it'll give you a starting point if you tend to avoid the book of Revelation 'cause it's one of the parts of the Bible where absolutely everybody's got an opinion and everybody contradicts everybody else, whether Arminian, UR, or Calvinist; Premillenialist, Postmillenialist, or Amillenialist.  It's the only book of the Bible that closes with the promise of an angel accompanying it to testify to you concerning the things that are written in that book (Revelation 22:16).

[Cardinal]

  Thanks for taking the time to correlate all this Martin.......

[martincisneros]

I'll have to do more studying on Passover and all of the traditions associated with it.  One of those, "I need to, but who's got the time??" kinda things...  But as I'm looking at these judgments categorized like this, the book of Revelation is looking more and more like a Passover document.  As I said in my previous post, I'd previously noticed that the 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls seemed to overlap with each other, but when the Holy Spirit said last night for me to have another peak at the letters to the 7 Churches and I sorta caught the gist of what I felt like the Lord was telling me about it, I went to my website and set up a webpage not viewable by others where I could set up 4 columns with 14 rows (7 for the actual Scriptures involved and 7 for a heading over each so that it wouldn't look like cookie-cut gibberish).  And I went to the Concordant website where I could get my hands on a copy of their New Testament without having to type all of that out.  By going to an online copy of the New Testament, then all I had to do was copy/paste the Scriptures into the various columns that I'd created.  I chose the Concordant for this because I wanted a reasonably accurate translation, and it lacks the doctrinal bias that I've detected in Rotherham's.  I wanted to know if I was hearing from the Lord, or if it was just a peculiarity about how my Scarlett's New Testament was translated.  There are soooo many translational mirages out there, so that on some doctrines it won't stand the scrutiny of refering to a different translation, that I just wanted to be sure.  I had been mentally toying with the idea for over a year, as I said.  But when I actually had those Scriptures in front of me in 4 side-by-side columns, that's when I started noticing throughout the night last night and most of this morning that there were more points of similarity than questions about "how does this tie together, if this is the way to read this?"  The 7th letter concludes with Christ's invitation to dine with Him, which the Lord's been telling me recently to take a little more seriously and literally than I had for years and years.  But that's for a different post sometime, when He's explained further or when my life's gotten a bit wilder with a dinner Guest a few times.

Anyway, the 7th letter concludes with Christ's invitation to dine with Him.

There's silence after the 7th seal is opened for half an hour.

Towards the close of the 7th trumpet judgment you've got the reaping of the wicked and of the righteous from the earth.

At the end of the 7th bowl judgment, you've got the White Throne Judgment.

So, perhaps, tying the above together, the White Throne Judgment might only be 30 minutes.  Talk about Daddy being a speed reader when the Books are opened!!

With the blowing of the 7th trumpet the woman (whom some interpret to be Israel) is nourished by God in the wilderness.  And lastly, with the pouring out of the 7th bowl, it says "Happy are those who are invited to the wedding dinner of the Lambkin."

Angels or human messengers are loosed at the Euphrates River with the 6th trumpet, while with the 6th bowl the Euphrates River is dried up to make a path for the road for the kings of the orient to be made ready.

This is getting more and more interesting as I'm looking at it.

It's seeming more and more to me as a Passover document where we're seeing all of the judgments that lead towards our passage from old earth to new earth.  I don't [yet] know enough about Passover to say this authoritatively, but there's a chance that the 7 letters, 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and the 7 bowls synchronize with each of the 7 days of Passover and the traditions/fulfillments related to that.  For Preterists, obviously, it would enhance their view that the book of Revelation is the passage from the old wineskin of Judaism to the new wineskin of Christianity.  But to me, the prophecies are a little too detailed to be limited to that.

I think that I finally understood why the Church Fathers narrowly allowed the book of Revelation into the canon.  The very first verse of the Book of Revelation says that the whole revelation is a message delivered by an angel.  Paul, in Colossians, viewed angelic revelations of a doctrinal nature to be, at best, "suspect."  If the Book of Revelation was written as early as some have insisted, then perhaps the Book of Revelation was being criticized by Paul, in particular, in Colossians.

For several reasons that I'll have to elaborate at either a later date, or on a different website, I believe that we're in the time period of the opening of the 3rd and 4th seals.  Again, starting with the letters, the spirit of Balaam in the Church where preachers are trying to keep people out of the various areas of "promised land" that the Lord's ministered to them regarding.  Balaam is beating his donkey, in various ways, literally, figuratively and metaphorically.  Jezabel is present with the sexual looseness even in Churches, and the eating of foods and animals that have been sacrificed to/by corporate idolatry.  Jesus is presently killing kids born of this Jezabel spirit, perhaps up to and including the abortion issue -- 'cause at any other time in history, people that know how to pray and have the fullness of the Spirit would have stopped abortion before it had gone an entire year.  But it's only continued to get crazier and crazier, so that it makes you have to take another look at the Letter to the Church at Thyatira.

The postmillenial hope/expectation of reigning with Christ on this earth prior to the return of Christ is growing in people who'd view themselves as premillenialists, which logically doesn't work 'cause "any moment now" they're supposed to go sailing off into the sky.  Interesting things have been happening with the sun, moon, and stars; people are getting sick from the sun. 

In fulfillment of the Hosea 2:18; Jeremiah 31:27-28 covenant, animals are starting to lose their fear of man as they're being lead towards Isaiah chapter 11, but currently they still have their wildness of Psalm 104 to where they'll corner you and eat your lunch.  So, we have that going on, in addition to the protective promises of God starting to kick in, in the behalf of animals, so that those that harm animals are themselves now being harmed.  Diseases are coming upon mankind through animals, and various other things are happening so that you have death coming upon mankind through the beasts of the earth in Revelation 6:8 and the daily newspapers.  The economy is at best, questionable.  All of these things relate to the third and fourth seals, third and fourth letters, third and fourth trumpets, and third and fourth bowls.

[Cardinal]

  Well, I definitely think you're on to something there. He's only shown me bits and pieces out the book so far, but all on a personal relating to individuals, since it all takes place inside the temple, whose temple we are. I know the natural bears witness in many ways also. I will definitely take a look at what it looks like on your website. Thanks, again, for taking the time to do it..........

[reFORMer]

The parallel 7's regarding The Book of Revelation in particular is dealt with in a 49 page book by David Ebaugh (an engineer and inventor who worked at NASA) free online.  (Please ignore reference to Revelation"-s" by whoever linked it.)  Please avail yourselves of a remarkable study.  He has other good stuff. 

http://www.davidebaugh.info/Key%20to%20Revelations.pdf

the home page is:  http://www.davidebaugh.info/introduction.htm

[martincisneros]

Hi reFORMer,

Thanks for the link!  What I've seen so far makes sense as far as "how" to read the book of Revelation, but I haven't "seen enough" of why God's chosen the particular punishments that He's chosen in the Book of Revelation -- whether by definition with all of the things that it says that the masses won't repent of, if those are the most medicinal and most direct way of reaching the ultimate repentance that He's after, OR, if there's a certain amount of gratuitous retribution with the choice in punishments.

I'm aware of the fact that "wrath" in the Greek (orge') means an explosive expulsion of the substance of the One that's exploding.  So that in the instance of God being the Personification of nothing but "love," we're talking about the love of God reaching the boiling point to where it's ravishing.  It's the same Greek word where we get the English words "orgy" and "orgasm."  But how that exactly translates between spirits seems to leave room for a lot of interpretation based on all of the available details.  At least for the time being 'cause I didn't grow up with the Universal Restoration message and have been playing "catch up" for 7 years ever since I had my Damascus Road experience while reading Jan Bonda's book, "The One Purpose of God."  I still remember the very line that made me a heretic forever that he built towards for 108 pages.  On pages 108 and 109 he asks the devastating question, after all he'd said up until then:

"If a king conquered death and he is appointed to rule over the dead, what else can this mean for those dead than their salvation?  What purpose would his victory over death have if he would not use it to free his subjects from the archenemy who keeps them prisoners?  What other reason could there be why he was resurrected by God?  His kingship brings salvation for all who have died, for it does not apply only to some of the dead, while the rest remain subject to the old ruler.  That ruler has lost his power (2Tim. 1:10)!  Therefore 1Corinthians 15:22 tells us that all who die in Adam will be brought back to life in Christ."

I spent the first 5 years that I was a Universalist secretly trying to find out why it was too good to be true, why this had to be wrong, where the exegesis strayed from reality, and every book; every word study; every explanation in church history for why this wasn't mainstream just repeatedly pierced my heart in no less tangible of a way than the spear that went into the side of Jesus.  I was writing from a UR perspective from the very first year that I started seeing this message.  I had somewhat of a grasp on the message by Holy Week of 2001 between Jan Bonda's book, Jukes's "Restitution of all things," and the J.W. Hanson and Louis Abbott materials on Tentmaker, but I had absolutely no rest for 5 years because of the level of animosity against this message -- even by otherwise Spirit-filled believers.

Some of the animosity made sense because with too many UR websites it's a package deal where it seems as though you've got to not only buy into UR, but into anti-tithe, preterism, and other things that are definitely the diametric opposite of the mainstream.  That's too much change, too much of a temperature difference, and too full of a plate for the average person bumping into UR for the first time.

But when you'd bring up the true meaning of "aion" and it's Old Testament equivalents, the usage of aion and of aiona ton aiona in the Septuignt, which was the Bible for the earliest Christians, and dozens of Scriptures that required no translational help, and you'd still nearly get chased out of town, tarred and feathered, etc.  That didn't set too well with me.  I was looking for where the misunderstanding was going on on my part, so that although this was making sense, perhaps I was taking things out of context because I wasn't a Greek scholar back then.  I'd just earned my first Th.D. at the time, and with the particular program of Biblical studies and my choice in dissertation topics, I never ran into much New Testament Greek either when getting my M.A. or my Th.D.  I've (of course) played catch up along the way since then -- mainly because of this ongoing crisis of faith where I had to know that I knew that I knew if I was going to pursue one of the most rejected historic messages of Christianity.

After the first 5 years of reading UR books from the 1700s to the present, noticing the SLOPPPPY GARBAGE posing for scholarship in W.E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament words, how the newer editions of Strong's Concordance "react" to the perceived heresy by narrowing their definitions along long cherished Augustinian doctrinal lines, and other shell games that I was noticing on the part of the elders at the gate of tranditional Christendom, I came to realize that it wasn't paranoia on the part of Gary Amirault and others, but some people in positions of Christian academia are deliberately, systematically resisting the truth by absolute diabolical misleading ways.

Elhanan Winchester's book "Universal Restoration" was a tremendous help during that time since it's 4 chapters of absolutely nothing but questions and criticisms from the perspective of the eternal torment paradigm and straight talking Biblical answers that weren't evasions or emotional banter against the criticisms, but actual Biblical verse-by-verse answers from a mind as sharp as St. Paul's.

All throughout this time period, it's been becoming increasingly clear that we really need to tighten up our interpretation on the book of Revelation.  If preterism or partial preterism is the interpretation, then bless God, be able to explain the thing verse by verse by verse with no loopholes.  But if it's futurist or historicist (i.e. contemporary) prophecy, then it's time to start having answers that are second to none for those that ask us a reason for the hope that is within us, as St. Peter advises.

I look forward to reading David Ebaugh's interpretation of the book of Revelation.  Hopefully it'll either let me finally lay the book of Revelation to rest, or if I disagree with anything he says, maybe it'll be just the trigger for more clearly manifesting and solidifying my own interpretation.  Revelation 5:13 alone makes the book of Revelation totally worth knowing how to present it, knowing what to believe about the whole book as a whole, how to interpret it alongside of Paul's Gospel, etc. 

I'm far enough along to where I know that I know that I know that premillenialism ISN'T the right interpretation of prophecy.  I was on that boat the first 31 years of my life and finally realized it was the biggest part of the sinking Titanic of pagan nonsense that I had to dump.  My appologies if this is the least bit sharp for anyone that still views prophecy through the premillenialist lense, but in the fall of 2006 I was getting corrected through my own preaching before I had ever heard of Postmillenialism and before I'd ever seen any careful exegesis of it.  "Behold, now is the tabernacle of God with men" (Revelation 21)  Now, that's your "Second Coming" and not Revelation 19. 

See the article that I've got in my "other authors" section at martincisneros.com if you've been married to the interpretation of Revelation 19 being the Second Coming.  I've got an article from someone that specifically deals with the spiritual vision of the Cosmic Rambo scenario, which would contradict Acts chapter 1, as well as all of the passages regarding His Melchezedec priesthood, if it were the Second Coming 'cause that's DEFINITELY NOT the way that He left.  They're not a UR author, but Postmillenialism is emphatically one or two steps away (3 at the most) from UR to where I'm astonished that Calvinists that believe in Postmillenialism don't slip into the well of infinite grace just simply from that side of the well that they're dancing on, if nothing else.  Many Calvinists are Premillenialists, so this isn't an automatic appologetics tool for dealing with them.  Some of them long for the sword swallowing Christ to come and massacre all of these heathen devils.

I've since removed the article mentioned in the last paragraph from my website, however I've this evening added a link to it on a new thread at this Book of Revelation board.  It's the thread on Revelation 19.

The book of Revelation -- whatever the truest view of prophecy ever winds up being -- is one of the very first things that mainstream Christians throw in your face if you come to them with UR.  It's in the interests of all of us to tighten up our interpretation of the whole book, and not just rely on being able to explain "ages of ages" from the Septuignt as a limited duration, and a good interpretation of "brimstone" doesn't suffice for too many Christians because of the overall sense of the rest of the book of Revelation to their carnal mind.  But, with the last 7 bowls is COMPLETED the outpouring of the wrath of God.  He'll have poured it all out!  All of it!!  So, whatever your interpretation of "wrath" from passage to passage, if in your view some of the passages allow for absolute retribution, it says that by that time period He's going to pour absolutely all of it out once and for all.  And Paul gives us the interpretation in 1Corinthians 15 of how all of those seeds of God's wrath have to come to harvest 100 fold.  What's corruptible must put on incorruption, and what's mortal must put on immortality, because all that died in Adam will be made alive in Christ. 

Absolutely all of the promises of destruction and restoration must be fulfilled in their entirety.  This is all that any Universalist contends for.

Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord God might dwell among them. (Psalm 68:18)

For we must needs die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. (2Samuel 14:14)

His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. (Psalm 72:17)

The earth, O LORD, is full of thy mercy: teach me thy statutes. (Psalm 119:64)

The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. (Psalm 145:9)

Man's goings are of the LORD; how can a man then understand his own way? (Proverbs 20:24)

And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.  (Isaiah 25:7-8)

With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. (Isaiah 26:9)

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:5)

He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11, remembering from Romans 5 that the One + the many = ALL.)

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me? (Jeremiah 32:27)

The Scriptures are clear about all of these things.  There's probably about 800 passages of Scripture that all say the same thing along these lines.  But we've got to get the book of Revelation out of the way, as far as it's usage as a stumbling block among mainstream Christians to keep them from embracing the Universal Restoration as foundational to the character, provision, and wisdom of God, as well as the extent of His might, faithfulness, wealth, and harvest from the Cross of Christ.  Fundamentalists that find our comments on Romans unanswerable always hide behind the book of Revelation.  And it's not just aion, fire, and brimstone passages.  The King James book of Revelation and the book of Revelation of other translations that by their own admission "continue in the traditions of the King James Bible" paints a bleak picture of God.  Some of that is the fault of the chapter number and verse number designations, that many people take to be "Gospel."  Numbering for chapters was begun in the 13th century, while numbering for verses was begun in the 16th century.

It would be too big of a pain in the butt to try to get Christians on an international scale to consent to revisiting the subject of how the chapter numbers and verse numbers are laid out.  And some are too ignorant to not be offended by the thought of such a project, as if we would somehow be mutilating the autographas of the Scriptures or whatever. "If those chapter number and verse number designations were good enough for Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul, then they're good enough for me, bless God!!"  It's not worth either having to, or feeling the need to slap so many people over such a historical sacred cow.

We've got to start thinking generationally, that if we don't press into the Holy Spirit for more accurate interpretations of the book of Revelation and of other "hard sayings" of the Scriptures, then the boogey men that chased us under our bed sheets will still be there for our grandchildren and great grandchildren.  With the internet and study resources available today, as well as more time available for such meditations, prayers and fasting in the Holy Spirit, giving and believing God for a harvest of righteousness, and our ability to "document" outpourings of the Holy Spirit for posterity, we have it within our power to have a Reformation within 25 to 50 years that would be more significant than the Reformation of 500 years ago.

[martincisneros]

I'd love to share more along the lines of this perspective.  Not sure that I know of any more to share, but I'll lean on the Holy Spirit for some type of typing utterance 'cause I've already shared all that's thus far occured to me along these lines.  Both due to this computer having some graphics issues when it comes to working with the Adobe program, and because for too many years I never did my own studying but read everybody else's books to know what I believed  the Lord won't let me have a look at the link that was posted on this thread for an interpretation that's already been given by a former NASA staff member on the whole perspective that this thread was started with.  The Lord will probably let me look at it later, but for a few days/weeks/months the Lord's wanting me to study to show myself approved.  He's been having me fly solo on the whole Hosea 2:18 Animal Gospel as well, so, that's sorta nothing new with the Lord wanting me to study the Scriptures for myself on a topic.

Right now, I'd love to know if the book of Revelation was written in the way that it was to keep prying eyes out of it's message 'cause [if this is the way to interpret it] to the undecerning eye it would appear to be just gibberish or the ramblings of a crazy man when read from start to finish, from chapter 1 to chapter 22.

(Joseph Prince claims it's division into 22 chapters isn't accidental, but is Providential.  He claims that each chapter corresponds to each of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the imagery associated with each of those letters.  But I don't have a copy of his teaching along those lines.  And I [genuinely] don't know if he makes it available in the US.  Anybody reading this that would like a peak for themselves at teaching along those lines can try contacting his ministry at www.josephprince.org to see if they make any book of Revelation teaching available in the U.S.  He's also briefly teased on his television program, while talking about other things, that the 7 seals of the book of Revelation relate to the 7 types of spirits that you're freed from when you come to Christ.  That's mean, his having teased like that and not having given more details on that occasion, right?    But he did allude to having already taught that and having it on either CD or DVD.) 

I think that the first chapter of Revelation points to this being the way to read it when Jesus passes along the message through His angel that He's wanting those 7 churches written to.  (i.e. what we've been talking about with the letters to the 7 churches corresponding with the 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls in numerical order)  If this isn't the way to read it, then minimally these patterns were put into the book to show it's divine inspiration and that it's not just a collection of myths, visions, and dreams that grew over a couple of centuries -- as is always the criticism with everything related to Christianity to start with in higher academia.  At least in the United States.

I'd noticed in Daniel chapter 2 that with that vision of the 4 world empires, that it's a situation where all 4 of those are concurrently a problem when Christ would grind them to powder.  At least, that's how the NASB is indicating.  I'm not too sure how this fits in with my Postmillenialism, since Christ commenced His reign 2000 years ago.  But perhaps this goes into the category on the difference between the time frame of "Church militant" and "Church triumphant" when we plow right into the millenial reign of the saints.

Has anybody besides me noticed that we've been dealing with Babylon in the middle east with this "war on terrorism" and now the prince of persia is wanting to raise hell?  Next is something Greek.  What, I couldn't possibly tell you apart from the Holy Spirit manifesting with a Word of Wisdom.  And then something Roman, which some are telling us is the "revived roman empire" with the E.U.  It's in the days of these 4 issues on the world scene that Christ annihilates the competition for world dominance.  The supposed fulfillment from what? 2500 years ago or so, until 1800 years ago wasn't a situation where all 4 were concurrently competing for world dominance.  If all of this were going to go down right now, then we've got basically 4 spheres of existance right now that everything else fits under the category of with the religious, the cultural, the economic, and the political.  Daniel's vision is repeated twice with the same bottomline message.  One is the different parts of a statue that are made of different things that are supposed to represent these 4 world forces, while the other is 4 different animals at work, if I remember right.  Daniel chapter 2 and Daniel chapter 7 seem to essentially have the same message.  One of the creatures in Daniel 7 is a leopard.  And we have a leopard appearing on the scene in Revelation 13:2, according to my CLNT and my NASB.  I don't have a copy of the Concordant translation on the book of Daniel, so, I'm not sure if they'd concur in the translation of a leopard for Daniel's vision.  But, all of the big Bible commentaries will try to claim that this leopard was Alexander the Great.  But what's he doing over here in the book of Revelation around the middle of the book?  We could try to argue for the preexistence of Christ for the earlier chapters of Revelation, but that would make it all hopelessly confused on why He's already opening the seals, releasing the trumpets, and the bowls in the behalf of mankind if He hadn't even died yet.

Whatever anybody thinks about the nature of these judgments from the first chapter of Revelation to it's last chapter, it's noteworthy that the Apostle of Love wept when he thought that nobody was going to open the scroll with the 7 seals.  Which in our study here would translate into his weeping over the trumpets not getting blown and the bowls not being poured out, if they're all different ways of looking at the same thing or follow up info on the status of what's going on over time with the same things released by the letters and the seals, whether we're talking about over a period of months, years, or generations from the first to the last of the seals, trumpets, and bowls.  John wept at the thought that nobody would unleash all of that.

I'm sure that a lot of us as little kids, after hearing the contents of the book of Revelation for the first time, were wondering why Jesus even bothered with opening the seals if it was all going to turn out SOOOO BADLY!! 

So, this would take you back to the definition that I'd given on "wrath" a post or two ago in this thread.  The Apostle of Love thought that something would be amiss if those seals weren't opened.  With the 7th trumpet being blown, we find a leopard being unleashed on the scene in Revelation 13:2.  If I'm reading it correctly, then it says in Revelation 13 that this leopard only has dominion for 42 months, or three and a half years.  But it conquers the saints with it's blasphemy against those dwelling in heaven, which according to Ephesians is us.  This has to be read with Daniel 'cause I believe it's in Daniel chapter 7 where it says that the saints are apparently overcome UNTIL the judgment is rendered by the Most High in the behalf of the saints.  And comparing Daniel with Revelation on these points, it's obvious that the millenium begins around this time, or rather shortly thereafter.  This would agree with the millenium being a part of the judgment of the 7th bowl 'cause we live and reign with Christ (going forth conquering and to conquer) for a thousand years and disciple the nations.  After the leopard falls before the saints, there's still evil going on on the earth and perhaps for a considerable amount of time afterwards, but we've regathered our barings and are riding with Christ conquering and overcoming the nations at this point with the proclamation of the Gospel.

In Revelation 11 with the blowing of the 7th trumpet, there's an earthquake, lightnings, thunders, and great hail, which might agree with Hal Lindsey and others if all of this comes out of some type of nuclear blast with war in the middle east.  That's not the only possible reason for the earthquake, but because of the nature of it and the way it's described in Revelation 11, as I've just said, then that's why I'm inclined to think that something really nasty just happened in the Mediterranean region around the time of the blowing of the 7th trumpet.  Perhaps that's how the leopard comes to power in Revelation 13:2, in whatever form that winds up being, whether political, religious, economic, or cultural with television or whatever.  With the pouring out of the 7th bowl -- remembering the parallels that we'd been talking about thus far, and that we've just talked about the 7th trumpet -- with the pouring of the 7th bowl, we have lightings, voices, and thunders yet again in Revelation 16, like we did in Revelation 11's closing.  And because of the magnitude of the earthquake that's indicated in this instance in Revelation 16, then that's why I'm inclined to believe that we're dealing with something nuclear or perhaps with meteorites 'cause of the lightnings, which could be either spiritual or natural phenomenon.  The lightnings in Revelation aren't as carefully spelled out as the candlesticks being Churches or the city of 7 hills which is either Rome, Italy, or Bath, England, or any number of other places with 7 hills that might be involved if this is future prophecy.  Allowing for just a moment that this might be a nuclear catastrophe that's just happened, in the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation we have the burning of the spirit of prostitution, and of perhaps a literal city, whether Rome, a republic of Babylon, or whatever.

[reFORMer]

. . . which could be either spiritual or natural phenomenon.  The lightnings in Revelation aren't as carefully spelled out as the candlesticks being Churches or the city of 7 hills which is either Rome, Italy, or Bath, England, or any number of other places with 7 hills that might be involved if this is future prophecy.  Allowing for just a moment that this might be a nuclear catastrophe that's just happened, in the 17th and 18th chapters of Revelation we have the burning of the spirit of prostitution, and of perhaps a literal city, whether Rome, a republic of Babylon, or whatever.

(Old) Jerusalem sits on 7 hills.  She's the Mother of . . .

[martincisneros]

I definitely want to restudy everything in the light of Old Jerusalem being on 7 hills.  That's very interesting.  Fits certain parts of Revelation 18 and not other parts.  If it's a future prophecy, then there's still time on the details making sense.  Until I finally started pursuing looking into Revelation as a series of 7s that were interconnected in sequential order throughout the book, I was starting to relegate the whole thing to just being spiritual warfare rather than physical events 'cause I was having a different interpretation every single time that I'd read through the book.  And often my next interpretation would completely contradict all of the others.  I was mentally playing with preterism, but I wasn't liking how dependent that that would make me upon Josephus for interpreting a book of the Bible if I pursued being able to fully explain it that way.  For preterists, Josephus and other historians wind up being the 67th+ books of the Bible.

The 7s interpretation that the majority of this thread has been about is the first consistent interpretation that I've ever come to where it would be possible for me to hang on to it without being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine regarding the book.

Obviously, this creates some additional questions for me.  Why am I not able to fit the 1st, 4th, 5th, 21st, and 22nd chapters of Revelation into this interpretation??  But on the other hand, being able to explain the 17 more significant chapters, or at least being able to come to some kind of elementary coherent understanding of them, is a more restful place for me to be.  I didn't like feeling like I had a grasp of the first 26 books of the New Testament and would draw a blank on the last book of the New Testament.  This creates the additional question in my mind as to whether or not there's this kind of pattern/coding/whatever with Zechariah and a couple of other Old Testament books that otherwise and likewise seem to be disjointed mysteries that you have to cookie-cut from for any type of doctrine from them.  This interpretation at least gives me the sense of prayerfully being able to discern the times.  Although I've never read it, it used to bug me around 2003/2004/2005 that Elhanan Winchester had written a 4 volumn set called "lectures on the prophecies that remain to be fulfilled" and not only was I not able to afford them since every copy that I've ever seen has commanded over a thousand dollars, but it made me wonder if I'd ever be able to fully grasp Bible prophecy for myself at all.  Having a copy of Scarlett's New Testament, I have a feeling that I know what are some highlights of what he taught, because of some of the footnotes that probably came from William Vidler, who was a disciple of Winchester's.  They were of the opinion back then that the 17th and 18th chapters were being fulfilled in their day.  A bit of a historicist interpretation, it appears to be, that might be the content of Winchester's Lectures.  Whether he was teaching Anglo-Israelism or something approximating it, I can't be sure, because I've never read his lectures on the prophecies that remained to be fulfilled.  But I don't see how he could have taught anything approximating that they were in the 17th and 18th chapters in their day, if that's ever anything that he ever taught, without going there.  Because otherwise, the book is reasonably clear that it covers many middle eastern events.

With the book of Revelation essentially being about the ultimate triumph of Jerusalem over it's enemies, I'm a bit convicted that I've never interceded long enough to know a general Apocalypse in relation to the future of Fort Worth, Texas where I'm living.  If God will reveal the future of one city, then why wouldn't He reveal the future of other cities??  Particularly if it would be in your best interests -- and perhaps in the interests of His purposes for your life -- for you to move because of approaching plagues, natural disasters, or greener pastures elsewhere for your life, ministry, and lifestyle.  So, aside from any other lessons that we might draw from the book of Revelation, I'm partially challenged about seeking the Wisdom of God regarding where I live and the cities that immediately connect with where I live, or that might have spiritual, economic, cultural, political, or other baring on it.

[martincisneros]

This letter illustrates perfectly the inherent negativity of modern exegesis.  Most Christians would recognize this as the letter to the Church that's going straight to Hell where they'll be bathed in the blasphemies, the brimstone, the devil's pitchfork, etc., etc., etc. in the ever-increasing Kingdom of Satan's Lake of Fire that'll ever be filled with each of those worlds whose unrepentant inhabitants the new Hitler...uh...er...I mean Christ will be tossing in there to writhe and to scream, moan, sob, and shriek as God heaps greater and greater suffering upon them throughout the endlessness of eternity as God uses all of His magnificent power in a perpetual miracle and outworking of His faith to increase their torments in proportion with each new level of acclimation that the inhabitants of the habitation of the damned reach as their sin increases, expands, and abounds to the glory of Satan, the Almighty Free-will of mankind, etc., etc.

Sorry, I was starting to get a bit carried away as I beheld the beast that sits upon many waters, but you get my point without my further elaboration...

This Laodicean Church is actually the zealous Church that repents, opens the door, and dines with Christ continually while seated on His Father's Throne until they [together with Christ] deliver up the Kingdom to the Father in 1Corinthians 15:28.

This 7th letter corresponds with the 7th seal, the 7th trumpet, and the 7th bowl of Revelation.  These aren't just the 11th hour repenters, these are the repenters at 11:59:59:59 for whom the heavens are hushed for half an hour with the opening of the 7th seal.  This is the Church that lives to see the Kingdoms of this world having become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ in Revelation 11:15 with the blowing of the 7th Trumpet which is one of the triumphant crowning acheivements of the preaching of the Gospel.  They are the woman in the wilderness in Revelation 12 whose "seed" is caught up to the Throne of God while they themselves are nourished in the wilderness in Revelation 12:6 on the wedding dinner of the Lambkin that's spread before them in the process of time in Revelation 19 after the pouring out of the 7th bowl.

It's the very Church that's going forth conquering and to conquer whose robes are dipped in Blood and who've inherited the Name "Word of God."  What they've bound on earth is bound in heaven and what they've loosed on earth is loosed in heaven as we see in Revelation 19 with Christ going forth with the armies of heaven in His High Priestly ministry in the beautiful vision that is given to us of what's going on as the Church on earth has moved from the militant phase to the occupational phase because the devil has been bound for a thousand years.  Revelation 19 shows Christ in heaven as the New Testament "Abraham," while the Church -- His "Isaac" -- is on the earth enjoying the hundredfold.

Not only is the 7th letter; the letter to the Laodicean Church the picture of those whose gold is refined in the fire and whose garments have been made white in the Blood of the Lamb, but they've wiped lukewarmness from God's Creation.  They're a type and shadow of us, and at the same time they're historically a Church that many theologians and pastors will be repenting to with much weeping for all of their misrepresentations of their overcoming character in the 1st century.

[martincisneros]

I'm not dogmatizing about an interpretation yet.  I'm just tossing out there another interesting oddity about the book of Revelation that's the tying together of the 1st letter, 1st seal, 1st trumpet, and 1st bowl -- according to the principles of this particular thread that I'm working through an interpretation of the book of Revelation with.  We get a lot of unregistered guests that look over the boards, so this may be more meaningful for someone who's not a registered member here than for anyone who is one of our regulars.

For those of you who hold to a futurist interpretation of the book of Revelation (and I'm not saying that I don't.  I'm still looking at it objectively for the first time in my life rather than presuming based upon the Hal Lindsey stuff I was raised on) -- if any of you happen to lean towards the ancient tradition of the future coming AntiChrist being a Catholic Pope that is a defector from the faith either based upon St. Malachi's prophecy or perhaps that taken as corroboration to your own studies of the Scriptures:  here's an interesting place where the dots seem to connect with that interpretation with the interpretative principle that I'm working through on the book of Revelation at this season of my life.

The first Church letter (chpt 2, vs. 1) addressed to the first of the 7 Churches addressed in the book of Revelation deals with Nicolaitanism, which as many of you know deals with denominationalism, and particularly of the Catholic variety.  The first seal, if you believe as I've just talked about in the previous paragraph, you'd probably take to be the coming of AntiChrist.  The first trumpet causes hail and fire mixed with blood to be cast upon the earth and there's an ecological disaster from that.  Probably just in the European and/or the Mediterranean area.  (Could this be where some of you slip in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 with the war of the latter years that involves Russia and a collection of Muslim nations accidentally self-nuking because of the Lord working against them in their attempt to invade Israel?)  The first letter, as I said, could reference Catholicism, and there's a tradition about a future Pope that turns away from the faith, which according to this tradition could be the coming of AntiChrist with the opening of the first seal in Revelation chapter 6.  Something crappy goes down during that time period, and some Bible prophecy teachers believe that Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 start the tribulation that they're anticipating that's at least 7 years in duration.  Though I'm not yet ready to be a total proponent of that view without more careful study on my own.  So, we've covered letter #1, seal #1, and trumpet #1.  What's left?  Bowl #1?  Yup!

Chapter 2, verse 1 for the starting of the first letter.
Chapter 6, verse 1 for the opening of the first seal.
Chapter 8, verse 7 for the blowing of the first trumpet.
Chapter 16, verse 2 for the pouring of the first bowl.

What do we have with the pouring of the first bowl?  Remember, with the first letter and the first seal, according to this view, is supposed to be a Papal defection from the Christian faith that's supposed to be in the near future, as of when I'm typing this.  Background information for the first trumpet.  And now with the pouring out of the first bowl we have a punishment upon those who are worshipping the image of the beast!  So, the religious theme continues from the 1st letter to the 1st bowl being poured out.  And what's this punishment that comes upon those who worship the image of the beast and have his mark?  A grievous and malignant ulcer that's come upon those who have the mark of the beast, and who are worshipping the image of the beast.  Where could this grievous and malignant ulcer have come from?  With the blowing of the first trumpet there was some type of ecological disaster that may have been nuclear.  And with excessive radiation, and particularly with the wrong type of radiation -- as in the man-made kind -- there's easily the potential for a genetic oops, the weakening of the immune system, and/or really slow healing and/or the burning of your flesh (i.e. until there's a hole) etc.

I'm not entirely sold on any interpretation of the Book of Revelation right now because too many teachers that I've heard over the years have contradicted themselves repeatedly, contradicted each other, and have contradicted things that I've seen to be very plainly in the Scriptures -- both on this book of the Bible and other areas of doctrine.  But to me, this was very interesting when I saw a glimpse of this, this evening!!

[Patrick]

hmmm very interesting not the first time that I have heard that the the first church goes with the first seal the first trumpet the first bowl.  Harlo White has two series on CD you should check out, The seven trumpets, and the Seven Seals.  Both well worth the listen

I personally agree wholeheartdly with that view.  The opening of the seal is what causes the message- revelation to the church to become active in our individual, corporate, lives.  The sounding of the trumpet is the annointed prophetic message going forth from the annointed lips of god's messangers, with the sounding of the trumpet there is always some destruction so that you may walk out the message.  the pouring out of the vial is upon those who reject the message and it always brings about great destruction and torment.

[martincisneros]

The more that I'm looking at lining up the judgments in this way (i.e. letters to 7 churches correspond to 7 seals, 7 trumpets, and 7 bowls in # order), the more it's seeming to add something to the theory that some have had about the letters being 7 distinct, though perhaps overlapping, eras within the Church age -- so that by the time you come down to the 7th Church, the Laodicean Church which corresponds with what leads into the White Throne Judgment with the camp of God's people being surrounded by the spirit that would try to make them wreched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked after a period of time of unprecidented prosperity with global discipleship -- earth's, or rather the Body of Christ's, golden age.  Gog and Magog, whatever else they mean and whatever else their intent are trying to make people "wreched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked."

I don't believe in a premillenial return of Jesus Christ, since I'm a postmillenialist, so even if I were to allow a 7 year tribulation in the way that some would understand it, that would simply be the prelude to the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in history rather than the Bodily return of His Majesty.  If each of those 7s were to stand for one of the years of that tribulation period within which there'd be the conversion of Israel, each of these 7 years could still be the "resurrection" of the Churches in Turkey that this letter was addressed to with evangelism going on in that part of the world on a level that hasn't been seen in over a thousand years so that they can live and reign with Christ for a thousand years alongside of us.  How else would this have been a letter of deep hope to those 7 Churches who'd honestly have little investment or cause for concern in what was about to immediately befall Jerusalem in 70AD if the book of Revelation were written prior to 70AD?  Turkey's far enough to where they didn't have to care beyond the level of sentimentality about what was about to happen to Jerusalem in 70AD if the book of Revelation was written prior to 70AD as some have insisted.  But a bit of a subliminal about the resurrection of their own congregations (i.e. local fellowships rather than necessarily an immediate arising of the same individuals from back then) in our time could grant a sense of immortality to those congregations in the ancient sense of military overcomers.

The Laodicean Church could also be said to be working in an intercessory priestly role in the behalf of the world to where the particular indictments against that Church could be more of what they were taking upon themselves in the behalf of the world of the world by faith as they pray and repent in the behalf of the world and reach for that mercy from God until it's flowing.  They're in the midst of buying refined gold to take care of wrechedness, the miserable, the poor, the blind, and the naked of the world which we find in the last two chapters of Revelation which could still be read as the era of the 7th bowl.  The Spirit and the Bride say "Come!"  Jesus says "I stand at the door and knock.  If any man open the door..."

[reFORMer]

   On the mountain of Zion there are 3 peaks or hills: 
Mt Zion,
Mt Ophel,
Mt Moriah. 
   The rest of the 7 hills of Old Jerusalem are: 
Mt Goath,
Mt Gareb,
Mt Acra,
Mt Bezetha.

[martincisneros]

Poverty's about to be abolished perdy soon.  If death is the last enemy to be abolished, then the Goliath of poverty's got to come down a bit sooner.  "Always" is a word used in the book of Romans regarding a threat against Israel that St. Paul quotes from the Psalms that their back would be bent over "always."  I'm not sure that I totally understand that statement that St. Paul quotes.  Must be a Hebrew euphemism for a backslidden condition 'cause that's how St. Paul seems to use it.  Yet he concludes by saying that all of Israel shall be saved and this will mean much greater riches for the world.  Obviously spiritual in some way, but perhaps riches should be read as "riches" as well.  Just as this word that contains the ominous word "always" will surely come to an end because all of Israel shall be saved, in the same way, I believe that when Jesus said "the poor you will have with you always" is likewise something that's not meant in the sense of actual "everlasting" language.

With the way that I've been looking at the book of Revelation, the 7th and last of the Churches that the book is addressed to are in absolute abundance, yet in the sight of Christ they've wandered from a blessed position to being poor, blind, wreched, and naked.  That would seem to correspond to the end of the millenial age which is after the 7th bowl.  So, they buy gold from Him refined in the fire, fire falls from heaven, and there's a new heavens and a new earth.  I don't believe the close of Revelation 20 teaches a final apostacy, but a final revival in the way that I'm reading Revelation.  I believe that the Gog and Magog situation in Revelation 20 is an attempt at a demonic attack.  There's nothing to demand that in Revelation 20 that that's human armies that have turned away from Christ.  Satan is loosed for a little season.  Perhaps still self deceived enough to think that he's escaped 'cause of his own cleverness, stunning power, or whatever.  And when people merge the earthly wealth with the heavenly wealth by opening the door to Christ afresh, then as the fire of God comes in you've got the beauties of the newer and much higher level of prosperity, and Father stabilizing the universe sufficiently enough with the Blood of Christ to where it can stand the intensity of His full Presence living among us without limitation.  But world peace and the end of poverty are really really really soon on the horizon.  We need it for the discipleship of the nations, and even if spirituality teeters on waning towards the end of the millenium (however long that winds up genuinely being), the whole earth will hear the knocking Christ before the fire that falls winds up being a condemning fire because of the last verse or two in Malachi.  The future is something to look forward to 'cause Jesus Christ has already prepared the way through the veil of His flesh.

[martincisneros]

And he said to me, These sayings are faithful and true....and of them who keep the sayings of this book...Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book....Revelation 22:6-10 Wesley's New Testament (1755)

These sayings [are] faithful and true....blessed [is] he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book....and of them who keep the sayings of this book....Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book.... Revelation 22:6-10 Webster's Bible Translation

These sayings are faithful and true....Happy is he who is keeping the sayings of the prophecy of this scroll.....the prophets and those keeping the sayings of this scroll.....You should not be sealing the sayings of the prophecy of this scroll....Revelation 22:6-10 Concordant Literal New Testament

To me, this passage of Scripture that calls these "sayings" in these three (and other) translations puts the book of Revelation in the same category as the book of Hosea.  It's both predictive prophecy and wisdom literature.  To me, the above passage more than justifies reading the book of Revelation in the way that I've presented in this thread thus far.  Plus, there is much more to be said along the lines of what I've already said on this.  I still don't know what I'm looking at.  The 7th part of this is the only part that I've thus far seen with really great clarity.  Now that I know the end from the beginning it would really be nice to be able to figure out what the rest of this is trying to say to me

9 Who [is] wise, and he shall understand these [things]? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD [are] right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall fall in them. Hosea 14:9 Webster's Bible Translation

9Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; The righteous walk in them, But transgressors stumble in them. Hosea 14:9 New King James Version

Again, the book of Revelation in the passage that I started this post with seems to be saying to me the same thing about itself as this last passage that I've quoted from Hosea seems to say about the book of Hosea: predictive prophecy AND wisdom literature!

[martincisneros]

Hi Patrick,

Harlo White has two series on CD you should check out, The seven trumpets, and the Seven Seals.  Both well worth the listen

Any chance on a website link on that, that's not the harlowhiteministries website?  I'm hoping that's not the web address that came up first when I typed his name into google because my antiviral program went nuts trying to visit the homepage claiming there was a Trojan.  And if that's the site, do you happen to have postal info so I can contact them other than via the website, if that's the right site??  There's only one website where I'll willingly take the occasional stoning when my antiviral software starts going nuts, and just press through anyway, but that's for another conversation at another time.  Not thinking I'll need to peak at that webpage any more anyway since God's been sooooooo gooooooood in recent months.  But I'd be deeply interested in these CDs you've mentioned, but have no idea how to go about getting it without the viral nonsense online.

[eaglesway]

Rev 5:1-2  And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.  (2)  And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?

I believe the sealed book in the hand of the one sitting on the throne is the book that Daniel was instructed to seal up....

Dan 12:4  But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

......so that the Revelation of John from chapter 6:1 onward is the opening of the sealed book. The opening of each subsequent seal is like the turning of pages in the vision. Notice, at the end of the revelation ...

Rev 22:10  And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book(biblio -"roll" as in a scroll, writing): for the time is at hand.
 


If you line up the trumpets and the bowls, you see that several line up, alternately (Rev 15:1  And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up(teleo-finished/completed) the wrath of God.


Trumpet #2 a third of the seas turned to blood
Bowl #2  all of the seas turn to blood

Trumpet#2 a third of the rivers and fountains turned to blood
Bowl #3     all the rivers and fountains turned to blood

Trumpet #7 Rev 10:7  But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
Rev 11:15  And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever 

Bowl #7 Rev 16:15-18  Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.  (16)  And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.  (17)  And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done.  (18)  And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.

Notice also that immediately before the seventh trumpet sounds a voice from heaven shouts "Come up here" and the two witnesses are raised and ascend "in a cloud". Then it says this is the second woe the third cometh "quickly"(tachu" immediately, suddenly)

Rev 11:12-14  And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.  (13)  And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.  (14)  The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.


So, I believe that the trumpets, the bowls, the vision of the two witnesses, the vision of the sun clothed woman and the dragon, and the vision of the towering messenger are all parallel(simultaneously occurring timelines...stories happening alongside and with each other) events that consummate at the second coming and glorious appearing of Jesus.

At the "last trumpet" (7th) the mystery of God is finished. Why?  No More Mystery. Christ in you the hope of glory is declared to the entire universe by the resurrection of those who are "His at his appearing" - the revelation of the sons of God. The open authority of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of priests restoring the creation from futility and ushering in the just(meted out in measure as deserved) punishments of God begins. The restitution of all things will be the openly declared will and work of God, as all the enemies are being made subject to His feet by the rod of iron.

The 7th bowl is introduced with the words, "Behold I come as a thief" and the words "It is done"(It hath come! YLT)

To sum up, I believe the seals are a part of the scroll in the hand, the vision itself

Isa 29:10-12  For poured out on you hath Jehovah a spirit of deep sleep, And He closeth your eyes--the prophets, And your heads--the seers--He covered.  (11)  And the vision of the whole is to you, As words of the sealed book, That they give unto one knowing books, Saying, `Read this, we pray thee,' And he hath said, `I am not able, for it is sealed;'  (12)  And the book is given to him who hath not known books, Saying, `Read this, we pray thee,' And he hath said, `I have not known books.'

The unfolding visions and events that are described after each seal breaks are a combination of 1)age-during(applicable in every generation) revelations about the spiritual bride, man-child, harlot, beast, etc. 2) pictures of the events immediately preceding and surrounding the second coming and glorious kingdom of God "swallowing" the kingdoms of this world.

Example: The woman clothed with the sun full to birth with a man-child is a picture of the bride/church/temple of God clothed again in glory, mature, ready to birth....as in Eph ch. 4
Eph 4:11-16  And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;  (12)  For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:  (13)  Till we all come in the unity of the faith(woman clothed in the sun, i.e. manifest presence, shining, city set on a hill, lamp on stand-not under a bushel[/color], and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect(mature, complete) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ(man-child):  (14)  That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive(dragon and flood of water);  (15)  But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:  (16)  From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.
 This is a general principle, I'm not trying to establish doctrine or eschatological identities- but the principles illustrated in the vision of the woman clearly speak through out the age even if they are going to be ultimately fulfilled/consummated/realized at the end of the age. Whenever a body of believers becomes mature as the Bride in pure betrothal to Christ, He dwells fully in them (manifest presence, filled with the Holy Spirit) and although the enemy sends floods of persecution and false teaching to swallow her, if she perseveres (saved through child birth) the mature man will be birthed (overcomers destroying the works of the devil)and make war against the dragon.

I hope some of this is helpful to someone.....test all things, hold fast that which is good   

[WhiteWings]

I'm starting to believe/see the whole Bible is very similar to certain Jewish customs.
Revelation is about the wedding IMO.
I can't really back it up with clear examples. I somehow think the trumpets are linked with the the groom blowing on the shofar. Then the friends of the groom 'steal' the bride usually in the middle of the night. (virgins and lamp oil parable) The bride is carried. (in mid air)

One Jewish custom confuses me a bit. Several bits actually

On the day before Rosh HaShanah, the Shofar is not blown. There are two reasons.
One is to make a separation between the blasts which were designated for Rosh HaShanah by the Torah, and those which were instituted by the Sages during Elul. The second reason is to confuse the prosecutor (Satan), into thinking that the Day of Judgment has already passed!

Do you think there is a similar trick in Revelations trumpets?

Or is this totally off-topic?

[Cardinal]

  Yes it IS all about Jewish customs, WW.......Blessings....

[WhiteWings]

I'm sure of that Cardinal. I overloaded Martins PM with such posts.

But I would like a more to-the-point answer to the part I quoted. (Rosh HaShanah)

[Cardinal]

  He hasn't shown me too much about Rosh Hashanah; I can read up on it when I get a chance and see if anything 'jumps' out at me, though. Blessings....

[Doug]

So, I believe that the trumpets, the bowls, the vision of the two witnesses, the vision of the sun clothed woman and the dragon, and the vision of the towering messenger are all parallel(simultaneously occurring timelines...stories happening alongside and with each other) events that consummate at the second coming and glorious appearing of Jesus.

There is a contrast between the trumpets and the vials or bowls because while a trumpet gives a loud noise, pouring out a vial is silent.

The trumpets must represent prominent events or conditions. They relate to the trumpets blown by the Israelites during the capture of Jericho as they entered the promised land. The Israelites circled the city for 7 days, and on the 7th day they circled it 7 times, and then all the people gave a shout, and the walls fell down.

I do not think the vials and trumpets are the same events, but there are some interesting points of correspondence. There is also a correspondence between some of the plagues/vials with the plagues in Egypt at the exodus. I think the trumpets span many centuries and all of the first six trumpets can be interpreted as picturing conditions that exist today. This may also be true of some of the vials.

I think the sea becoming blood, in the 2nd trumpet, and the 2nd vial or bowl, may represent people at war. On the figure of the sea turning into the blood of a dead man, Hengstenberg wrote:

The dead did not need to be more definitely described than as slain, because it is only in this kind of death that the blood flows out. That we are not to think here of some general mortality, but of the shedding of blood in war, is evident alone from the symbol of the sea, out of which the beast arose. In ch. xx 13 also the dead that are in the sea, are those who perished by a violent death in political conflicts.--The scourge of destroying war is placed before our eyes by a double image--the changing of the sea into blood, and the dying of the living creatures in the sea.

[E. W. Hengstenberg, The Revelation of St John, v. 2, p. 194]
http://books.google.ca/books?id=w5EXAAAAYAAJ

And saying Rev 16:15-18, "Behold, I come as a thief" surely indicates these events occur before the resurrection of the saints, as you suggested, if I understand you correctly.

Doug

[eaglesway]

I agree that the trumpets and the bowls are not the same events and that they occur before the first resurrection/parousia of Christ. I believe that they are separate and occur alternatively over a period of time, perhaps first trumpet, first bowl, second trumpet, second bowl, etc. Although the pouring out of the 7th bowl may be silent there are many noises that occur from it....a great earthquake and a shout, "It is done". Which correlates with when the seventh angel(trumpet) sounds the mystery of God....is finished. I tend to think that the trumpets and the bowls are like the judgments of Egypt at the Exodus, and I believe they may be called down/proclaimed by the two witnesses even as the judgment of Egypt was called down/invoked/ or proclaimed by Moses. That would be why the people rejoice when they fall. The language around their(the two witnesses) resurrection leads me to believe that they are a part of the first resurrection, because they go up in a cloud, with a shout, "Come up here" immediately before the seventh trumpet sounds. So I see the trumpets and the bowls and the two witnesses as actual event prophecy. Even as Jesus was "foreknown from the foundation of the world and manifested in these last days" (Peter) I see these two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth as being "the ones for whom it is appointed" that Jesus spoke of when the mother of James and John put them up to requesting that place.Sometimes the prophecies of events also include pictures of spiritual reality( or even are exclusively for that purpose), but I tend to believe that even as the prophecies of Daniel and Jeremiah and Moses and Noah, etc., were all tied to actual events that were fulfilled, sometimes in there own days and then often, beyond, there are both spiritual word pictures and future event prophecies in Johns apocalypse.  I also believe that these things also represent eternal truths that are always in effect in "eternity", i.e. on the other side of the veil, where all these works were finished from the foundation of the world. We have to go through the veil, by the "new and living way," as one soul, "the one new man",seated with Christ in the heavenly realms above all principality and power- in order to, hear His voice, enter His rest and participate in the finished work.

[sheila]

 Hi Guys;

   I'm going to throw this out here.I came across this a few weeks ago in my pondering.

   2Chronicles 29;21 where Hezekiah purifies the temple...

  and consecrates it.

      7 BULLS/SEALS

      7 RAMS/TRUMPETS

      7 MALE LAMBS/PLAGUES

      7 MALE GOATS/BOWLS OF GOD'S WRATH

     this is not fully formed in me,as of yet

   Bulls,praise of the lips/opened as seals

   Rams as shofar and trumpets

   male lambs connected to passover/plagues and plague of 
 
   firstborn.

  male goats/bowls of wrath/scapegoat in O.T. for atonement

  and in N.T. seperated by Jesus unto wrath.

  As the offering began, singing to the Lord began,also

  accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David,King of

 Israel.The whole assembly bowed in worship,while the singers

sang and the trumpeters played[see Rev singing,bowing before

 throne/trumpets etc.]

   Gotta run some errands, am interested if you see anything in

  this. Will check the board later this evening.

                    Sheila

  p.s.  Martin, the Passover follows in CH 30 following this..

  I agree it seems to be some kind of passover/deliverance

  arrangement in Revelations